Malware attack hits thousands of Yahoo users

Malware attack hits thousands of Yahoo users

"(CNN) -- A malware attack hit Yahoo's advertising server over the last few days, affecting thousands of users in various countries, an Internet security firm said."

"In a blog post, Fox-IT said Yahoo's servers were releasing an "exploit kit" that exploited vulnerabilities in Java and installed malware."

""Given a typical infection rate of 9%, this would result in around 27,000 infections every hour," the company said. "Based on the same sample, the countries most affected by the exploit kit are Romania, Great Britain and France. At this time it's unclear why those countries are most affected, it is likely due to the configuration of the malicious advertisements on Yahoo.""

Java exploits have long been a target of malware authors, making it essential to keep your devices up to date. According to some references, the rate of infection of the exploit is slowing down, but it uses an exploit similar to ones seen in the past.

As always, it is imperative to make sure that all of your connected devices are properly updated and patched and have trustworthy malware protection.

Re: Malware attack hits thousands of Yahoo users

Thanks for posting about this major malware news, David.

There have since been a few updates to the story from various sources, including this article from PCWorld. The updates focus on Yahoo saying that the malware didn't affect users in North America, Asia Pacific, or Latin America.

"...people in these locations were not served the advertisements...In addition, users using Apple's Mac computers and mobile devices were not affected."

Re: Malware attack hits thousands of Yahoo users

Yep...I think there were a lot of unknowns initially, but it's good to hear that less areas were hit than what may have originally been suspected. We'll keep monitoring this news and if there are additional details, I'll make sure to update the story.